joins top intelligence and national security officials over at the white house warning of a broad and deep foreign influence threat to american democracy. does president trump agree? the director of national intelligence admits he still doesn't have details about what president trump discussed the russian president vladimir putin in their one on one meeting. why is the top u.s. intelligence official being kept in the dark? mueller's key witness. special counsel robert mueller wants to interview a russian pop star. he featured a trump look alike character in one of his videos and helped arrange that meeting between trump campaign officials and a russian lawyer at trump tower. could he have critical information for mueller? and lavish laundering. prosecutors highlight extravagant spending by paul

manafort, including a $15,000 ostrich jacket and a $10,000 karaoke machine. why did manafort suddenly, though, go broke? i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." ♪ this is cnn breaking news. breaking news tonight, top national security and intelligence officials are warning of per vavasive and continuing russian interference in the u.s. political system. at odds with president trump's continued questioning of russian attacks on the tr2016 presidentl election. > first, let's go to our chief

white house correspondent jim acosta. the white house wants to show the administration takes election interference very seriously despite doubt the president continues to cast. update our viewers. >> reporter: that's right. the white house tried to show the world today that it's serious about stopping russian interference in u.s. elections. but the top administration officials on display today insisting they are on the case had to grapple with one very key question, whether the president himself takes the threat to american democracy seriously. >> the president has made it clear -- >> reporter: it was a show of force as the white house and top administration officials from the director of national intelligence to the national security advisor to the fbi director to assure the american people they are determined to combat russian interference in the u.s. elections. >> we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states. >> reporter: director of national intelligence dan coats insisted the order is coming

from the top. >> the president has specifically directed us to make the matter of the election meddling and securing our election process a top priority. >> reporter: homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen described a grave threat. >> democracy itself is in the cross hairs. free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy and it has become clear they are the target of our adversaries who seek to sow discord. >> reporter: all of this stood in stark contrast to the president's statements. in his meeting with vice president he declined to confront vladimir putin about meddling. the president had often diminished the russian threat. >> i accept our intelligence community's conclusion that russia's meddling in the 2016

election took place. could be other people also. >> reporter: the officials gathered in the briefing room for asked about the disconnect. >> i'm not in the position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at helsinki. >> reporter: then there are the president's tweets accusing top fbi officials of being part of a witch hunt, a charge echoed by press secretary sarah huckabee sanders. >> he's certainly expressing the frustration he has with the level of corruption we've seen by people like james comey, peter strzok. >> reporter: fbi director chris wray pushed back with sanders in the room. >> i can assure the american people that the men and fwomen f the fbi are going to follow our oaths and do our job. >> reporter: the president's daughter ivanka trump told axios that members of the press are

not the enemy of the american people as her father often says. >> i've certainly received my fair share of reporting on me personally i that know not to be fully accurate, but no, i do not feel that the press is the enemy of the american people. >> reporter: sanders refused to say the press is not the enemy. his own daughter acknowledges that. all i'm asking you to do is to acknowledge that right now and right here. >> i appreciate your passion. i share it. i've addressed this question. i've addressed my personal feelings. i'm here to speak on behalf of the president. he's made his comments clear. >> reporter: each of the top officials at the white house today laid out various task forces and initiatives that have been launched to defend against russian attacks in the upcoming election. the big question is whether any of those efforts will be successful. that answer may not come until well after the november elections are over. they like to say here at the white house they're not responsible for 2016 because

they weren't in power when 2016 happened. they can't say that about this fall. >> good point. let's get some more on the breaking nubreak ing news. jim sciutto, how serious is this russian threat leading up to the midterm elections? >> listen to the senior most intelligence officials for all the agencies responsible for protecting the elections today. it's hard to imagine a starker warning from them, from the fbi, the department of homeland security, the director of national intelligence as well as the head of the nsa which is responsible for responding to cyber attacks. they use language like russia continues to have the willingness and capability to attack. they say the threat is real, it's continuing. listen to what dan coats said. he says russia is attacking the election not just in the social media sphere, but targeting particular candidates, stealing

their information as they did with hillary clinton in 2016. have a listen. >> in regards to russian involvement in the midterm elections, we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states. we also know the russians try to hack into and steal information from candidates and government officials alike. >> that's of course what russians did with hillary clinton and other democrats during the 2016 campaign. what we have not seen yet, they say, are specific attacks on election systems, such as voter registration, certainly not vote counting yet. we do know in 2016 while there was no russian attack on vote counting, there were probing attacks that looked for vulnerabilities, et cetera. they haven't seen that yet on these midterm elections, but they made it clear that could change at the drop of a hat.

at least to date they vice president seen that kind of interference. >> did it sound to you like the fbi is currently pursuing specific investigations? >> that was frankly the biggest news from this press conference, because the fbi director christopher wray revealed something he hasn't revealed before. that is that there are current investigations involving all of the fbi's more than 50 field offices around the country. doesn't mean you have investigations in each district but that the field offices are involved looking at what they call foreign influence nexus. that would include individual trying to influence the campaign like with maria buttina who has been arrested and charges. the funneling of foreign money into the campaign which is not only illegal but raises hard questions about governments such as russia trying to influence this campaign. >> also tonight cnn has learned that the special counsel robert mueller has been trying to arrange an interview with a

russian pop star. he encouraged the trump tower meeting promising dirt on hillary clinton. why would mueller want to talk to him? >> reporter: the family are sort of ground zero for this trump tower meeting. it really occurred because the son had reached out to his publicist and asked him to set up a meeting with donald trump jr. now, we have a copy of the e-mail that rob goldstone sent to don junior in which he asked to set up the meeting. he says i was asked to contact you with something very interesting. they offered to provide the trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate hillary and her dealings with russia and would be very useful to your father. the family are at the beginning of this meeting.

they're the ones that suggested that it occur. this is the meeting with the russian lawyer. the family didn't attend the meeting but mueller might want to talk to them for two reasons. don junior, when he was asked on capitol hill during testimony whether he had spoken with the family before this meeting, he said he didn't recall. the pop star has been on a bit of a publicity tour and he's given some interviews in which he said he did speak with donald trump jr. another area of inquiry may be whether they have any knowledge if president trump knew about this meeting before it occurred. last week we reported that sources said that michael cohen suggesting he has some information he could offer up that would show that donald trump knew about the meeting in advance. i asked the attorney today whether they have any information about that. he said they had no reason to believe that donald trump the candidate knew about the meeting in advance.

>> it's interesting because besides the trump tower meeting, the family also had business ties to donald trump, is that right? >> that's right. they go way back to the trumps about five or six years. they worked with them in establishing -- they met with them in las vegas where they were discussing how they would put on the miss universe pageant in 2013 in moscow. donald trump asked them to invite vladimir putin, the russian president to that. putin did not attend. also after the success of the miss universe pageant there, donald trump was in talks with the family about establishing a trump tower in moscow. they had some initial conversations on that. it never got off the ground, but we do know that mueller's team is looking at any contacts that trump has had with russians before the campaign, through the campaign and right up until the election. >> how would this interview work

out logistically? does mueller have any leverage? would u.s. investigators be able to go to russia to conduct such an interview? >> this is why they're having these negotiations that the lawyer told me today have been going on for nearly a year, because mueller does not have subpoena power or any authority to compel the family to sit for an interview. if they were to come to the u.s. -- the son has this new music video out in which he's sort of mocking the whole russian investigation. he has actors who look like donald trump, like michael cohen. he had video of michael cohen. he has someone who looks like ivanka trump in there. he's being provocative and sort of having a little bit of fun with the investigation. if he were to come to the u.s. to perform, they could stop him at the airport. they have stopped a couple of oligarchs to question them as they come into the u.s. other than that occurring, they

really have to try to negotiate something and see if they could go to perhaps another country to have an interview. i don't know if they would have it in russia, but they would have to negotiate something like that. that's what we understand is still ongoing. their lawyer today told me he's not sure they're ever going to get to a place where they agree to sit for an interview. >> let's get more on all of this. democratic senator ben carden of maryland is joining us. senator, thanks so much for joining us. i want to get to the russia investigation in a moment. but first can the united states effectively counter russian aggression if president trump isn't necessarily on the same page as his national security and intelligence officials? >> the report i issued six months ago in regards to the russians spelled out what we

need to do. some of that was listed by the national security team at the briefing. but what it really requires is the president of the united states to make an unambiguous commitment to defend this country and to stand up against russia. that's been missing. we have not heard from the president. we've heard from his security team and that was good today. what they said was important. but the president's been missing on this. when he had an opportunity with mr. putin in helsinki, he gave a free pass to mr. putin. so, no, we haven't heard from the president in the strong terms that we need and that's absolutely essential to be fully defending against what russia is doing. >> the director of national intelligence dan coats was asked about that disconnect which we saw on display clearly in helsin helsinki. he said he's not in the position to understand fully what happened at that trump/putin summit. how concerning is it to you, senator, that the director of national intelligence is still in the dark on that very

important meeting? >> it's really shocking that the director of national intelligence does not know what happened in helsinki in the meeting between the president and president putin. that's absolutely amazing. he need to have that intelligence information in order to do his job. yet he doesn't know what happened in that room. that's why as an oversight function of the united states senate, it's absolutely essential that we have the information about what happened in the meeting between mr. putin and president trump. we have not been briefed as to what happened in that room. when secretary pompeo was president on our committee, he did not enlighten us at all about what happened in that meeting. >> it's interesting. what sort of offensive operations against russia would you support as a threat to them, you better stop what you're doing, otherwise you're going to pay a huge, huge price.

the u.s. of course has offensive cyber capabilities, probably the best in the world. >> over a year ago congress passed mandatory sanctions against russia not just because of their attack against us in our elections but also their their activities in the ukraine. these are mandatory sanctions. the president hasn't even used all those mandatory sanctions. first and foremost, carry out the law, increase the sanctions against russia. your national security team told us today that russia is still actively engaged in the united states. let's increase the sanctions. secondly, work with us, mr. president. we filed legislation yesterday, bipartisan legislation with senator graham and menendez and mccain and gardener and shaheen. i joined them in strengthening the sanctions against russia, not just because of what they're doing on cyber attacks on our election system and the

propaganda but what they've done in ukraine and continue to do in ukraine. join us in strengthening the tools that you have so you can let mr. putin know that unless he stops these activities, he's in for more sanctions. >> beyond sanctions, senator, would you support offensive cyber operations, retaliation against the russians, hacking into their systems for example, disclosing their sensitive e-mails, showing details about putin's wealth, that kind of operation, something the russians clearly don't want but might listen to? >> six months ago i called upon the united states to work with our european allies as to what the cyber attacks mean under article five of nato. yes, i do think these are attacks against us and we need to defend ourselves. and we defend ourselves with all the tools we have available. i wouldn't take anything off the table, but i do think we should

work with our nato allies and recognize that cyber attacks are attacks against our country and require us to defend ourselves and to take appropriate action. >> would you want the president of the united states too te tel putin specifically, you continue these hacking activities, you continue to interfere in the u.s. election process, you're going to pay a huge price yourself, you're not going to like it because we're going to do exactly to you what you're doing to us. would you want the president to issue a direct warning to putin along those lines? >> the answer is yes, i do want the president to issue a direct ultimatum to president putin that he cannot continue to incur in our country and invade and interfere in our election, that that's illegal and we consider that a hostile act and we'll take appropriate steps. i wouldn't announce what steps they would be. i wouldn't say how we would

respond but i would make it known to mr. putin that we will take aggressive action. i think we should take action today because of what has happened far more than we've already done. >> let's get to another sensitive issue. cnn has learned that the special counsel robert mueller is offering to limit the questions he asks about possible obstruction of justice, if there's a sitdown interview with the president. he's open to having president trump answer some questions in written form. what does that tell you? >> well, first of all, i was disappointed i saw from president trump this week additional tweets that he sent out to try to compromise the mueller investigation. the president has certainly done everything he can to prevent this investigation to reach its proper conclusion. i want mr. mueller to have all the tools he needs, all the access that he needs, including the president of the united states in order to complete his investigation. the president said earlier that

he would cooperate. well, cooperate means what mr. mueller needs, whether it's live interviews with the president, whether it can be handled through questions, that's a decision for mr. mueller to make and i would hope the president would cooperate. >> thanks so much for joining us. there's more breaking news ahead. a russian spy unmasked after working inside the united states embassy in moscow for more than a decade. plus, bombshell testimony in the trial of former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. we have details. fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate helps you. with drivewise. feedback that helps you drive safer. and that can lower your cost now that you know the truth... are you in good hands?

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we're following breaking news. a senior administration official tells cnn that a russian spy worked for the secret service inside the u.s. embassy in moscow before being fired last year. our global affairs correspondent has details. this russian woman was employed at the embassy for more than a decade? >> that's right, for more than a decade working for the secret service. of course there's a concern when you have what they call foreign service nationals, citizens of another country, in this case russia, working for the embassy. there's a concern they're going to be talking to the russian government as part of their job. but here, wolf, u.s. officials realized that there were unauthorized meetings, conversations and a lot more information being passed to the russian government, particularly the fsb, one of the primary russian security agencies than

out of the normal course of this woman's job. after several months, the woman was reported to the embassy and then she was fired. >> what kind of information specifically would she have access to and how much damage could she do? >> well, not surprisingly the secret service is trying to down play the woman's role. officials have told me that she didn't have any access to national security information or classified information. in a statement the secret service said this woman's duties are limited to translation, interpretation, cultural guidance, liaison and administrative support. at no time in any u.s. secret service office have foreign service nationals been provided or placed in a position to obtain national security information. but this woman had access to the secret service intranet system, which all employees are accessed to such as the president's

schedule, the vice president's schedule, the e-mail system. the way she was caught was that officials caught her red handed. they kind of did a sting operation, passed information to her that reached the fsb and she was caught. >> thank you very much. there's also breaking news in the trial of the former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. prosecutors highlighted his lavish spending. his long time bookkeeper testified today he was actually broke by 2016. jessica, jurors heard a lot today about manafort's expensive taste. >> that's been the crux of prosecutor's arguments. on the flip side, his bookkeeper today was on the stand saying that despite thele ma lmillions made, he was flat prosecute bbr. that was around the time he offered to work for the trump

campaign for free. and he got a bank executive a position on the campaign. paul manafort's dire financial situation outlined for the jury. the prosecution dropping the bombshell that manafort was broke by 2016 after spending millions maintaining his lifestyle. after manafort's ukraine consulting money dried up, he turned to bank fraud. manafort's business and personal estate bookkeeper spent hours on the stand detailing how manafort's lobbying firm was financially strapped after his clients in ukraine were driven out of office. the retailers and other vendors taking the stand say they often didn't recognize the company names manafort used to make payments to their companies for services. prosecutors are presenting these wire transfers from offshore bank accounts to prove their claims of tax and bank fraud. paul manafort has seemed calm and stayed silent through three

days of testimony. but the question lingers, will he testify? the judge raised the issue, stressing he will not be penalized for the right to remain silent, but added he does testify, it will be more likely the judge will allow evidence that the irs never audited manafort, something his attorneys want to use to bolster his defense. one person we now know will take the stand rick gates. prosecutors conceded they will call gates, who some are calling their star witness. it could be as soon as tomorrow or monday. gates was manafort's deputy during the campaign and was his long time associate. he has pleaded guilty to two counts in d.c. and is cooperating are the special counsel. the defense said it intends to pin the blame on gates, saying he embezzled millions from manafort. but the prosecution is going to great lengths to showman fo man alone was spending the millions.

they've showed receipts showing what he spent on high end suits and clothing. $9,500 on an ostrich vest to complement the ostrich jacket he later paid $15,000 for. he bought suits from the most expensive in the world. but jacket, $32,800. manafort also kept his seven homes in pristine condition. his landscaper testified that manafort spent about $450,000 over five years for his hamptons home, commissioning him to care for the hundreds of flowers, plus one of the biggest personal ponds in the hamptons. and manafort kept it high-tech. he paid more than $2.2 million in electronics, including $10,000 on a karaoke system in

2010. prosecutors have also prevents these vendors with fake invoices that paul manafort may have created to look like it came from them to cover for the money he moved out of his of seas bank accounts. prosecutors will continue questioning paul manafort's accountant when court resumes tomorrow morning. that accountant has already told the jury he never knew about manafort's foreign bank accounts. prosecutors have already called a large portion of their witness list. they told the judge yesterday they could even wrap their case by next week. the breaking news continues. top trump administration officials now warning of russia's ongoing threat to america's democracy. does president trump believe them? plus, robert mueller's quest to interview a russian pop star who spoofed president trump in a music video. what does he know about mr. trump and the trump tower meeting with a lawyer tied to the kremlin? ♪ ooh, heaven is a place on earth ♪

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correspondents and analysts. i want you to listen to what the director of national intelligence said earlier today. >> in regards to russian involvement in the midterm elections, we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states. russia has used numerous ways in which they want to influence through media, social media, through bots, through actors that they hire, through proxies, all of the above and potentially more. i can't go into any deep details other than what is classified. but it's pervasive, it's ongoing with the intent to achieve their intent, and that is drive a wedge and undermine our democratic values. it goes to russia's intent to undermine our democratic values, drive a wedge between our allies and do other nefarious things. >> but does president trump

believe that? >> heck no, he doesn't believe this. did you see him saying anything about this? the reason they're out there talking about this is there's four walls in the room around the president and those walls are closing in. number one, members of his own party as we go into the midterm elections are out there saying we've got to be careful. number two, the indictments from the special counsel -- and i believe we're going to see more of them -- are pretty dam ining. if you look at what happened in the past week about social media, facebook is out with detailed reports saying this is how the russians are continuing to attack us. and the most significant piece, i think the reason why we saw this in the press briefing today, you've got people on capitol hill including the secretary of homeland security, presumably close to the president, saying i don't really care what the president says. i've got to get out and say we continue to see interference. what's the white house supposed to say? everybody's coming in saying

it's still happening. >> dan coats said the russians are trying to drive a wedge between americans. they're trying to spread disinformation, alienate america from its allies including nato allies. as you know, the president's critics say president trump is trying to do the same thing. >> if you look at the recent weeks alone, you could make that case. he walked into the nato summit and wouldn't commit to america coming to the defense of some of its most longstanding allies. he has continued to escalate the risk of a global trade war. here at home he has intensified his attacks once again on the media, trying to discredit any coverage he doesn't like as fake news, calling journalists unpatriotic. what he hasn't shown a great deal of concern for is an ongoing evident by the russians to interfere in the u.s. elections. it's striking that on the one hand republicans have tried to

distance themselves from the president's comments and said they take this issue seriously. but yesterday republicans in senate blocked $250 million in election security funding. i think ultimately what the president has done with the president of at least some republicans is made the job of his intelligence chiefs a lot more difficult, because he is not providing them with the tools they need to prevent another attack on u.s. democracy. >> i want you to listen to another revealing moment from the news conference earlier today. >> how do you explain the disconnect between what you are saying, his advisors, and what the president has said about this issue? >> i'm not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at helsinki. >> that's pretty shocking, three weeks after the helsinki summit the director of national intelligence says he's not in a position to understand fully or talk about what happened. >> it is remarkable. he's not just saying i'm not in a position to talk about it. he's essentially saying i don't know what happened.

it has been two weeks. we the american people and trump's own administration don't know what was discussed, what representations may have been made, what deals the president might have made. the little information that has trickled out about that meeting has been pretty worrying, the president being open to the possibility of russian authorities interviewing the former u.s. ambassador to russia. i do think this touches on a larger theme of the trump administration, which is that president trump insists there is nothing untoward about his policy toward russia. yet at every turn he seeks to either hide or out right lie about what that policy might be. he's not just hiding it from the american people, he's hiding it from the very individuals within his administration who are tasked with providing him that crucial context and information so he is making good decisions on behalf of the united states. >> that news conference today at the white house, how much of it was optics trying to take away from some of the other stories out there right now? >> it was clearly optics. but i don't think it's as much

about trying to push other stories aside although the white house does that all the time. but i think it's about the optics about what's to come in november, what we're going to look back on when indeed there is some interference. if it is as pervasive and persistent as described. i watched that today and i said we're going to play sound from this press conference in november and december when we see what the interference impact really was. i think it was quite clear that this white house understands they have a vulnerability on this issue because the president is not at all interested, hasn't seemed to be, in putting it front and center. so the administration is coming around the president to make sure they're out there saying, hey, we're on top of this, even though it's clearly not priority number one for him. >> everybody stand by. there's more news we're following. the special counsel robert mueller wants to question the russian oligarch and his pop star son who encouraged that notorious campaign meeting in trump tower.

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and accessoriesphones for your mobile phone. like this device to increase volume on your cell phone. - ( phone ringing ) - get details on this state program call or visit we're back with our correspondents and analysts. we're now told that mueller still wants a sitdown interview with the president of the united states but he's willing to limit

the questions supposedly as far as obstruction of justice is concerned. he's also willing to let the president answer some other questions in written form. >> it's not especially surprising that mueller is willing to compromise. both sides are incentivized to compromise here. what it shows is that mueller is still intensely focused on having this interview, on getting trump on the record particularly as it relates to obstruction of justice. we've seen how terrified the trump legal team is of actually having that meeting, the risk that the president might ultimately perjure himself. it might raise the possibility that the next step is not going to be new indictments but instead litigation over a subpoena of the president. >> that could drag on months and months as it goes through the courts. do these developments, this latest offer from mueller to the president's legal team, does it suggest that an actual interview is more or less likely? >> the first thing it suggests

is mueller's interest remains in wanting to get in front of the president, and the president's interest remains in looking like he wants to be cooperative. both sides see value in allowing that negotiation to continue. nobody sees value in cutting it off just yet. whether or not the interview takes place, i still think a full-on, in-person interview is not likely to happen. i think the trump legal team will probably be able to win some internal battles with the president to keep that free and broad kind of conversation from happening. >> you saw the "new york times" report today that the president actually thinks if he does have a sitdown interview with mueller's team, he believes that he could convince them that the whole russia investigation is a witch hunt. >> i get to laugh on this situation. so we've got dozens of indictments including both americans and russians against the most storied prosecutor,

that is robert mueller, of the past generation at least. i would say the fbi's been around since 1908. robert mueller is the most famous fbi director in the 110-year history of the fbi. the president thinks after he failed with kim jong-un, after he failed to persuade putin to not interfere with elections, after he failed to persuade congress to repeal pope to become a page. mueller will say keep talking. when you are done talking we'll see if anything you said is true and anything you said is a lie. >> if he refuses to sit down and have this meeting and there is a subpoena from mueller that could drag on for a long, long time. the white house wants this to be over with already. >> there is no evidence that it will be over anytime soon. i don't see how robert mueller

will conclude this investigation without sitting down with the president. i think the president has repeatedly said he wants to sit down with the special counsel and tried to project this confidence. you see if you look at his fixation with the russia investigation he is clearly very concerned about the effect that it has had on his presidency and indictments on key figures within his campaign and early days of the administration and his own attorneys do not want him to sit down with mueller because i think there is a very real concern that the president might perjure himself. we will learn more about it in the coming weeks. >> a quick thought. we learned that a russian national, a russian woman who worked at the u.s. embassy in moscow for more than a decade, works for the u.s. secret service there, was kicked out because she was a spy for the russian intelligence agency. how much damage potentially over the ten years could she have done to the united states? >> the most important thing is what information she had access

to. there are policies to prevent foreign nationals to getting access to national security information. it is designed specifically to prevent damage in this kind of situation. >> we'll see what happens in that front. thank you very much. the breaking news continues here in the situation room. the giant wildfire burning in northern california is growing tonight. we're going out there for a live update. ♪ hawaii is in the middle of the pacific ocean. we're the most isolated population on the planet. ♪ hawaii is the first state in the u.s. to have 100% renewable energy goal. we're a very small electric utility. but, if we don't make this move we're going to have changes in our environment, and have a negative impact to hawaii's economy. ♪ verizon provided us a solution using smart sensors on their network that lets us collect near real time data

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we are following breaking news of the deadly wildfires scorching parts of northern california. it has grown to more than 125,000 acres. let's go to cnn on the scene for us. fires damaged or destroyed more than 1,500 homes and other buildings. what is the latest? >> reporter: it has been a week now since fire tore through this neighborhood. it was only today that people were actually allowed to come back and see what was left of their homes. it was a pretty emotional experience for people to see their homes looking like this. what might make things more painful or hard to understand is for them to walk down the block and see other homes looking like this one. the man who lives in this house actually ignored evacuation orders and managed to save his home with just a garden hose. tonight as some 20 wildfires

rage across california a survivor describes how he made it through. the carr fire tore through his subdivision a week ago torching the woods behind his house and the homes across the street. he shot this video on his phone as he watched. johnson ignored evacuation orders defending his home with only a garden hose as flames lit up his fence, deck and raced through the trees. >> i was freaking out trying to get that to stay where it was. i couldn't stop it. i kept spraying the trees and stuff just trying to keep it at bay. >> reporter: the order was lifted today as people came back to see what was lost. for many it was everything. >> it is devastating to lose everything. it is unreal. you just can't prepare for something like this. >> reporter: the carr fire has already destroyed more than 1,000 homes making it one of the most destructive fires in

california history. the ferguson fire near yosemite national park has forced a large portion of the popular tourist attraction to shut down. >> we are trying to do a tactical firing around the area to protect the giant giant -- >> reporter: crews are trying to stop the flames from crossing over the paved road. plan b is a fire break bull dozed a few miles away. even that may not stop the fire thanks to the extremely hot and dry conditions. >> if i took 100 embers and threw them how many will catch fire? >> 98 embers will start new fires out of 100. >> it is because the low humidities and the very dry fuels are coupled with high

temperatures. >> and the wind is expected to pick up once again tonight meaning those flames will once again be fanned. >> awful situation. thank you very much. i'm wolf blitzer in the situation room. erin burnett outfront starts right now. outfront next, breaking news, the president's lawyers says trump will decide within days whether he will sit down with bob mueller as the president tells his national security team to take on russia. why now? shocking testimony about paul manafort's wealth. a key witness today says he was broke in 2016 and telling lies to fund his lifestyle. and a russian spy caught inside the u.s. embassy in moscow. how did the u.s. allow her to work there for more than a decade? good evening. i'm erin burnett. the breaking news. president trump to decide within days wheth